Authorities have placed a Chinese flag at the head of a mosque in western China, forcing ethnic Uighurs to bow to it when they worship, Uighur activists said Wednesday.

The local government in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Regionâ€™s Aksu area placed the flag over the mihrab -- the traditional prayer niche that points the direction to Mecca -- prominent Uighur rights advocate Ilham Tohti told Al Jazeera. He called it an effort to â€œdilute the religious environmentâ€ in the area, where minority Uighurs often complain of ethnic and religious repression.

Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the report at time of publication, and Aksu officials did not respond to multiple calls for comment.

Reports from Uighurs in the area said the placement of the flag has upset residents amid a series of fresh religious restrictions, which analysts say Beijing hopes will integrate Uighurs into Chinese society and pacify the strategically important region. Xinjiang is perennially rocked by clashes between Muslim Uighurs and Chinaâ€™s majority ethnic Han Chinese.

â€œThey placed the flag at a very sensitive place in the mosque,â€ Tohti said, explaining that he has seen Chinese flags prominently positioned in mosques in China before -- but never in such a sensitive spot.

Tohti noted that Muslims pray facing Mecca in Saudi Arabia, but Chinese law and authorities demand unwavering allegiance to Beijing.

â€œThey are essentially saying the flag is higher than religion,â€ he said.

Authorities in Xinjiang have recently imposed new restrictions on religious behavior. These including posting signs across the region barring women from wearing headscarves in public venues.

Tohti said the religious restrictions -- in a Chinese region bordered by Kyrgzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- are part of Beijingâ€™s attempts to secure its business inroads in Central Asia, which analysts say is set to become a leading source of Chinaâ€™s natural energy imports.

â€œChina is opening up its foreign affairs to the West. They hope not to have any problems as they expand their influence, especially not in Xinjiang. They are worried about this danger,â€ Tohti said.

Chinaâ€™s efforts to promote calm in a region that is key to its economic endeavors appear to be two-pronged. New religious restrictions compound decades-old bans on minors entering mosques to receive religious instruction and attempt to curb traditional fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The government has also engaged in a protracted crackdown on what Beijing calls violent Uighur separatists.

Radio Free Asia reported Tuesday that local officials said 12 more Uighurs had been killed in a raid in western Xinjiang last month, bringing the total reported dead in crackdowns that month to 34.

Beijing attributed the ethnic clashes that killed at least 21 in April and another 27 in July -- after similar riots that killed hundreds in 2008 and 2009 -- to what it calls "terrorist" and "separatist" groups. Uighurs say the assailants are upset with social repression and a lack of opportunities to partake in the Han Chinese-dominated local economy.

â€œIn context of U.S. military pull-out of Afghanistan, China is concerned about ruffling feathers of Muslim populations to the West, as they have large plans of expansion of influence into Pakistan and Central Asian Muslim majority countries,â€ he said.

But Roberts said it appears that Beijing's current methods are less than effective.

â€œPutting myself in the position of Chinese bureaucrats, their strategy is not working, so they are pushing it harder and harder. And their strategy is only exacerbating the problem.â€

Tohti offered his own suggestions for a new strategy.

â€œIf China really believes Uighurs are part of the country, then meet your responsibility to them. Uighurs are impoverished and have no rights. China needs to improve their living standards,â€ Tohti said.

I would like to hear a justification from them as to why party functionaries have access to a house of worship, let alone decorating the place with flags. Do official Chinese news agencies have any comment?

I would like to hear a justification from them as to why party functionaries have access to a house of worship, let alone decorating the place with flags. Do official Chinese news agencies have any comment?

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Chinese also banned fasting during the Islamic holy month of rahmadan.
If they were able to forcefully enforce that this is nothing.

so where are the organization of islamic unity and all the other jihadists ?

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China will NEVER succeed in their plans in Pakistan. Pork loving atheist kafir communist
and Islam do not mix well, as China attempts to get closer to Pakistan the Jihadis will make
inroads in to East turkmenistan and from the other side from Afghanistan and Central
Asian republics that East turkenistan belonged to before being usurped by China.

So, the Chinese wish to brainwash the Muslims into thinking that direction of salvation is through the Chinese flag and onto Mecca - both having the same significance!

Very ingenuous!

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we have a news as below too

â€œBy banning fasting during Ramadan, China is using administrative methods to force the Uighur people to eat in an effort to break the fasting, â€ Dilshat Rexit, the group spokesman, said in a statement.

China will NEVER succeed in their plans in Pakistan. Pork loving atheist kafir communist
and Islam do not mix well, as China attempts to get closer to Pakistan the Jihadis will make
inroads in to East turkmenistan and from the other side from Afghanistan and Central
Asian republics that East turkenistan belonged to before being usurped by China.

Click to expand...

Well, we don't need to mix with Islam in central asia since we are the foreigners in their countries. As long as we respect their religions in their countries, I don't see how they could be bothered where a chinese flag is hanging within China.

This is the typical indian style wishful thinking: you guys have problems with China, so you think that everyone is sharing with you!
Unfortunately, there is no gov including Afghanistan claiming any piece of this so called "east turkstan"!

The disrespect to Muslims at their house of worship is despicable no matter what excuse is given. The Chinese flag in that context is meant to provoke and humiliate. What reaction can the Chinese expect? Clearly the Party has no respect for anything but itself and is compelled to dominate every part of Chinese society. Are there even any Chinese words for the phrase "individual freedom"?

The disrespect to Muslims at their house of worship is despicable no matter what excuse is given. The Chinese flag in that context is meant to provoke and humiliate. What reaction can the Chinese expect? Clearly the Party has no respect for anything but itself and is compelled to dominate every part of Chinese society. Are there even any Chinese words for the phrase "individual freedom"?

Yes. Your usual distraction and evasion of the particular incident under discussion. You are the master of the smokescreen among the fifty-centers who swarm the internet to defend the Party.
My "outrage", if any, is trivial. China will need to deal with the anger of its oppressed minorities, and that thought pleases me. Those who insist on the policies to control China's population are sociopaths.

Well, we don't need to mix with Islam in central asia since we are the foreigners in their countries. As long as we respect their religions in their countries, I don't see how they could be bothered where a chinese flag is hanging within China.

This is the typical indian style wishful thinking: you guys have problems with China, so you think that everyone is sharing with you!
Unfortunately, there is no gov including Afghanistan claiming any piece of this so called "east turkstan

In China, if the â€˜Dalai Lama cliqueâ€™ and Tibetan Youth League are blamed for triggering trouble in Tibet, the culprit behind the sporadic violence across the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is inevitably the shadowy East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).

The other groups
termed culpable are exiled Uyghur groups operating from abroad, said to be working as the front for ETIM.

But experts and rights group have expressed serious doubts how serious the ETIM threat actually is; some have termed it bordering on fiction, especially about the al Qaeda connections.

It is routine for the state-controlled media and strategic experts to claim that ETIM members, many of them trained in an unnamed South Asian country return to Xinjiang to incite locals against the authorities.

Bowing towards Mecca does not make Muslims more free, wealthy or powerful so neither is bowing towards the Chinese flag going to be any more effective. This is a symbolic but useless act like Saddam having people walk over a US flag or Bush's image. If walking over a flag is going to harm the flag owner, bowing to a flag is going to improve things for the owner of that flag.

The logic and science here is mind boggling. Psychologically it just shows a stupid, small minded Chinese functionary who is attempting to make the Uighurs feel insulted while he displays his loyalty to the ChiCom politburo like a donkey following a dangling carrot.